Powell Street Festival first took place in 1977 and has since expanded to be one of the largest and longest-running community arts festivals in Canada.
Powell Street Festival Society now functions as a non-profit registered charity arts organization based in Vancouver and the Paueru Gai Area—today known as the Downtown Eastside—located on the unceded territories of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations.
In addition to its signature event, Powell Street Festival, the Society offers year-round programs and collaborates with local, national, and international organizations, artists, and communities to advance equity and well-being for all.
To celebrate Japanese Canadian art and culture to connect communities.
Powell Street Festival Society’s vision includes a society enriched and interconnected through Japanese Canadian arts and culture. To achieve this vision we:
Powell Street Festival is a free 2-day public event, which attracts over 23,000 local, national and international attendees. It is held in both outdoor locations and indoor venues around the Powell Street area within Vancouver’s historic Japanese Canadian neighbourhood, on the traditional unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil- Waututh First Nations. Influenced by typical Japanese summer festivals or matsuri, PSF features something for everyone, including dance, music, film and video, visual arts, martial arts demonstrations, amateur sumo tournament, children’s activities, participatory activities, walking tours of the historic neighbourhood, craft vendors, traditional displays, delicious Japanese food, and much more. The Festival provides a platform for Japanese Canadians to perform, display their work and gain recognition.
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The area once known as Paueru Gai (Powell Street), has seen an ebb and flow of Japanese Canadian culture since the late 19th century. In 1877 the first groups of Japanese immigrants to Canada started what would eventually become a uniquely Japanese Canadian community around the Hastings Mill and Waterfront in today’s Downtown Eastside located on the traditional unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil- Waututh First Nations.
Throughout the early 1900s, the Japanese Canadian community continued to grow, in part due to the immigration of more Japanese women (many picture brides). Despite anti-Asian sentiments and acts of violence, such as the 1907 Race Riots, by the mid-1920s Powell Street was a hub for Japanese culture, commerce, and sport. Vancouverites flocked to watch the champion baseball squad, the Asahi, play at Oppenheimer Park. Roughly 10,000 Japanese Canadians lived in and around Paueru Gai Area when they were violently uprooted and dispossessed due to wartime internment.
Following the 1942 forced removal of all Japanese descendants, Paueru Gai experienced a period of neighbourhood vacancy and economic downturn. After the war, returning Japanese Canadian residents settled again in Vancouver, or elsewhere in areas such as Steveston. For Japanese Canadians who returned to Vancouver, the Vancouver Japanese Language School served as an important centre of Japanese culture.
In recent decades, the Paueru Gai area has grown multiculturally as a heart of the Downtown Eastside. In the 1970s, a collection of efforts emerged to honour Japanese Canadian history in the neighbourhood.
In 1977, the Japanese Canadian centennial year, Powell Street Festival (PSF) was initiated by a member of the Japanese Canadian Volunteers Association (Tonari Gumi). PSF celebrates the history of Japanese Canadians in the area through an event similar to the festivals, or matsuri, of Japan. In the spirit of the neighbourhood, PSF has something for everyone. In addition to being a platform for Japanese Canadian arts performers to showcase their talents, the festival engages the broader community through fun cultural activities, volunteer opportunities, and of course, delicious food.
As a part of Powell Street Festival Society’s (PSFS) mandate, society volunteers are deeply engaged in the Downtown Eastside. Year-round community events are attended and supported by PSFS, in addition to the festival weekend that involves local residents as volunteers in various capacities. With our partners, PSFS has also contributed to the commemoration of Paueru Gai through creative, multidimensional projects such as the Japantown Historic Map Guide and the Open Doors Project. PSFS also shares a seat with the Vancouver Japanese Language School on the Downtown Eastside Local Area Planning Committee that is collaborating with the City of Vancouver to produce a shared vision for future neighbourhood growth.
Since the removal of Japanese Canadian residents from the Powell Street area, various titles have been attributed to the distinctly Japanese neighbourhood of the past. Paueru Gai, literally translated as Powell Street, was commonly used by area residents in pre-internment years. Since the war, various groups have used names such as Japantown and its literal Japanese translation, Nihonmachi, to describe the historical neighbourhood though those terms were rarely used by residents themselves.
